I, too, loved this piece, and thought it was the most on-the-money, insightful thing published to date on this whole "dumb-down" subject - was tempted to blog about it (and still may) but thank you for spreading the word!

Billy, I'm sure we'd all look forward to your further thoughts on the matter. Scott kinda off sloughed off the two big rom-coms that came out this summer -- The Proposal and The Ugly Truth. Be interesting to see where you pick up from Scott's line of reasoning.

The worst is when they take a successful franchise, tune it down to PG-13, then add some wise-crackin' child or an eXtreme! teen to the cast so it can "connect" with younger viewers.

Bill Hicks once described marketing people as "Satan's little helpers," and there's a lot of truth to that.

Hick's also prayed that California would drop into the drink and create a lovely new coastline, "Arizona Bay!"

Best comic/philosopher we've had since Lenny Bruce...

Thanks for printing Scott's piece. This "mass infantilization" is real and it's discouraging for a struggling writer to deal with. Fifteen or sixteen years ago the studios dished out popcorn flicks intelligent adults could actually sit through. Suit and tie thrillers like "The Firm" or "In The Line Of Fire" were released smack dab in the middle of summer - and made lots of green. I still can't figure out what happened to American cinema.

I believe Hollywood is reflecting regression found in pop culture, usually hovering around popular notions of adolescence. One blogger, in reference to the upcoming Where the Wild Things Are filmm brilliantly calls one aspect of it as "hipster nostalgia porn".

I know people my age — 30-somethings — who willingly spent 12 or 15 bucks to see Transformers 2 and enjoyed it. A coworker in his 40s tried to validate seeing the Wachowski Brother's Speed Racer. Many in my generation are still avid comic book/graphic novel collectors and readers. I received the Spiderman 2 (yes, the sequel) DVD as a wedding present.

This isn't anything new. I'd say the trend has been growing since the early 90s, with film "reboots" (though they weren't called that back then) of television shows we used to watch in our younger days: Flintstones, Scooby Doo, Brady Bunch Movie, etc. And remember post-teen ravers with Hello Kitty keychains on backbacks? People in their 30s and 40s were collecting Beanie Babies back then.

Now, there are restaurants (if you can call them that) in NYC that serve up nothing but peanut butter sandwiches, kiddie style, to adults who inexplicably pay for the privilege.

Society has chosen to value the unnatural prolonging of adolescence, and Hollywood is just catering to our collective urge to regress.

PS (and I can go, and have gone, on and on about this):

As long as our pop culture engine is fueled primarily by adolescent tastes, ridiculously puerile films like Transformers 2 and G.I. Joe will continue to be box office favorites (despite critical reviews) over films like Moon and The Hurt Locker.

Getting off the soapbox now :)